Mike Rogers wants Michigan to know he's worried about tariffs. He says levies on Canadian goods could wreck the state's auto supply chain, which is true. Michigan's car industry doesn't stop at a border. A door panel may cross it several times before it ends up on a showroom floor.
So ask the obvious question: who put those tariffs in place, and whose party keeps them there? Rogers wants credit for noticing the fire while running on the ticket of the people who lit it. Even the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, hardly a progressive outfit, finds that tariffs have cost the average Michigan household an extra $5,600 since January 2025. That is a mortgage-sized hole in a family budget, and it was dug on purpose.
This is why the rest of Rogers' campaign looks the way it does. A candidate who can't defend the economy his party built has to change the subject, and the subject he has chosen is Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed is "extreme," Rogers says: defund the police, empty the prisons, the Green New Deal. Notice how much of that is a charge to be attached to him rather than a record to be examined. Meanwhile, what is El-Sayed actually running on? Medicare for All, which in a state of auto workers, retirees and small-business owners who know what a premium costs is a kitchen-table argument, not a seminar topic. He has also opposed the Canadian tariffs, which puts him closer to Michigan's economic interest than the party whose president imposed them.
Then there is the smear that never quite goes away. Rogers has previously linked El-Sayed to terrorism. El-Sayed calls that Islamophobic, and he is right to. A Muslim candidate of Arab descent being tied to terrorism is not a policy critique. It is a very old trick, and anyone who pretends not to recognize it is choosing not to. El-Sayed's point that these attacks exist to pull voters' eyes away from household costs is also good politics. When your side's tariffs have cost families thousands of dollars, you want everyone looking elsewhere.
The poll-watcher proposal deserves more alarm than it has received. Rogers defends using retired and off-duty police officers to watch voting in Detroit, a majority-Black city, and insists it would protect the vote without intimidating anyone. The people proposing to put cops near the ballot box are rarely the people who feel what that looks like when they walk in to vote. If the aim is election integrity, there are already trained, credentialed, nonpartisan election workers. If the aim is to make some voters think twice, this is how you do it, and no one has to say so out loud.
Now the part my own side should hear. El-Sayed has said Israel should not be regarded as a U.S. ally. That is a position many on the Left hold and a debate the country should be having rather than outlawing. But in a 50–49 race, Democrats should stop pretending that candidates carry their whole coalition along by sheer moral clarity. The task is persuading Michigan voters, including those uneasy with him, that his core promise is lower costs and a government that works for them. He can win that argument, but not by letting Rogers define it.
A one-point race is a margin-of-error race, and these races are decided by who turns out. Republicans are betting on distraction, fear, and a show of force in Detroit. Democrats should bet on the number that actually lands in a household: $5,600. Michigan voters know what they're paying, and they should ask who made them pay it.
How it may affect me
If the Senate's balance turns on this race, Michigan voters' choice may shape whether tariff policy, health-care costs and election rules face real congressional challenge. Households can check their own exposure: car prices, parts, groceries and appliances are where tariff costs most often show up. Detroit voters should also confirm poll-watcher rules with local election officials before Election Day.
